Utah News

Last year when Utah and Washington met in Seattle in a nonconference women’s basketball matchup, the Utes were the team paced by veterans and the Huskies had a young, upstart group.

The Utes were able to hand the Huskies a 67-57 loss, led by a group that included Gianna Kneepkens and seniors such as Maye Toure, Jenna Johnson, Kennady McQueen and Ines Viera.

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Those roles have been reversed for their matchup this season, and all those Ute greats are no longer on the team.

Utah will host No. 25 Washington on Saturday (2 p.m. MST, ESPN+) at the Huntsman Center in the first real test of the season for both programs.

It gives the Utes a chance to build their resume and test a group that has a handful of upperclassmen mixed in with a strong contingent of freshmen.

“They’re the veteran crew. They’re the top 25 program. We have a lot of new (players), so it’s a great chance for us early in the year to get a home game against a great program and test ourselves,” Utah coach Gavin Petersen said of Washington.

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“We’re going to play hard for 40 minutes and let the results speak for themselves.”

Utah has beaten Sioux Falls, Utah State and Utah Valley by an average margin of victory of 28.6 points to start the 2025-26 campaign. Washington, meanwhile, has easily handled Seattle and Montana, winning its two games by an average of 39 points.

That makes Saturday’s matchup an intriguing one for both programs.

Talia Goodman, a national women’s college basketball expert for On3, included Utah-Washington on a list of her top 10 games of the weekend.

“Former Pac-12 foes can’t get away from each other. This is a fun one, as it’s both teams first real test of the year,” Goodman said. “Utah’s freshmen have a ton of potential, while Washington’s core remains one of the best in the country. Elle Ladine has yet to play this season, so I’ll be intrigued to see if she’s able to suit up.”

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The Utes have been led by senior guards Maty Wilke and Lani White, who combined for 31 points, seven rebounds and five steals in Utah’s win over UVU on Tuesday.

The Utes’ intriguing group of freshmen is also getting plenty of play as well. That’s included valuable minutes for point guard LA Sneed, a former five-star recruit, Avery Hjelmstad and Evelina Otto, who’ve all flashed their potential early in the year.

For Washington, the conversation starts with guards Sayvia Sellers and Ladine, who both earned preseason All-Big Ten team honors.

Washington coach Tina Langley said Ladine, who’s missed the team’s first two games with an undisclosed injury, is “day-to-day,” according to Huskies Roundtable, making it unclear if she’ll be available in Saturday’s matchup.

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Sellers, meanwhile, is averaging 20 points per game while shooting 65.4% from the field. She’s also averaging 5.5 assists and 1.5 rebounds per contest.

“They’re so versatile. They can score inside, they can score outside. They play with great pace, and they also execute at a high level. They don’t turn over the ball. They’re not going to make mistakes. You’ve got to be disciplined,” Petersen said.

While Utah has done a good job with executing Utah basketball on offense — i.e. excelling at sharing the ball and taking good shots — the Utes have struggled with turnovers. They have averaged 19.7 per game through three contests, and Washington could exploit that kind of high number.

“You’ve got to play harder than them,” Petersen said. “They have so much synergy together out on the floor. We’ve got to do something where we can disrupt it, but being disciplined (while) doing so, or else they’ll make you pay.”

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The matchup comes as a good primer for Utah, which will play at the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase next week. Games against Syracuse and defending national champion UConn await the Utes at the showcase, which is held at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.

The experience of playing Washington can also help the youthful Utes learn some valuable lessons that will help come conference time.

“This is going to be a great taste of what Big 12 play is going to be like. It gives us a preview to be like, ‘OK, what do we really have? What is our team really about?’ I’m excited to see how we come out,” Petersen said.

“We’re obviously preparing how we come out, how we play for 40 minutes and put four quarters together. I’m excited to see how we go about doing that against a really good program, but those are the type of teams we’re going to face in January and February, so why not do it now?”

Paging Jay Hill. Calling Hill.

TCU QB Josh Hoover is coming to town and needs your immediate attention.

Attention, Morgan Scalley. Summoning Scalley.

Baylor QB Sawyer Robertson is trotting onto the field and needs your instant focus.

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There will be big-time throwing artists in the crosshairs of BYU and Utah defenders on Saturday when No. 13 Utah travels to Baylor and No. 12 BYU hosts the Horned Frogs in LaVell Edwards Stadium.

Leave these guys unchallenged and they can deliver big-time plays, standing in the pocket like statues in target acquisition, and they’re lethal.

Chase them, harass them, bring them down to the turf, or disrupt their comfort, and their artistry is impacted.

Robertson is No. 1.

In Waco, Robertson is the Big 12’s leading passer with 230 completions in 366 attempts, seven interceptions, 62.8% completion rate for 2,780 yards and 26 touchdown passes. His efficiency rating is 146 and he averages 308 yards passing per game.

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Coming to Provo, Hoover, who diced BYU apart two years ago as a freshman, is the league’s No. 2-ranked passer. He has completed 219 of 335 passes with eight interceptions, a 65.4% completion for 2,690 yards, 23 touchdowns, an average of 298 yards per game and a 150 pass efficiency rating.

Hoover has almost twice as many TD passes as BYU’s Bear Bachmeier (12), and Robertson’s 26 touchdown passes are 11 more than Utah’s Devon Dampier (15).

Both have shown a penchant for struggling when pressured.

Hoover’s strongest performance of the 2025 season came on Sept. 20 against SMU, where he completed 22 of 40 passes (55% completion) for a season-high 379 yards and five touchdowns with just one interception. He also contributed 27 rushing yards on eight carries. This explosive outing powered TCU to a 35-24 victory and showcased his arm strength with multiple deep balls, earning him a 162.4 pass rating for the game.

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Hoover’s most challenging game was on Sept. 26 at Arizona State, completing 20 of 32 passes (62.5% completion) for 242 yards, zero touchdowns and two interceptions. His rushing line was particularly rough at minus-38 yards on nine carries, which included multiple sacks. The lack of scoring production and turnovers contributed to a tight 27-24 loss, marking his lowest pass rating (113.5) of the season to date.

He also threw two interceptions that led to Kansas State scores in a four-sack loss on the road.

Robertson’s standout performance this 2025 season came on Sept. 6 against SMU, where he threw for a career-high 440 yards on 34 of 50 passing (68% completion) with four touchdowns and no interceptions. He also added 20 rushing yards on six carries. This game helped Baylor secure a thrilling 48-45 double-overtime victory, marking one of his two 400-plus yard outings and contributing to his FBS-leading passing yards total.

Robertson’s toughest outing was on Oct. 18 at TCU, when he completed 25 of 52 passes (48.1% completion) for 318 yards, two touchdowns and a season-high three interceptions. He managed just minus-12 rushing yards on four carries. The turnovers were pivotal in Baylor’s narrow six-point loss.

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Both the Utes and Cougars are in dire need of wins this weekend. Utah is in survival mode — a third league loss would shut the door on a myriad of Big 12 and College Football Playoff opportunities.

The Cougars already used up their mulligan with a loss at Texas Tech last week, but still control their own destiny to Arlington and possibly a CFP bid.

These are the games Hill and Scalley are built for.

These are the kind of quarterbacks they like to scheme for, then wait and see if there is chaos and carnage.

This will be a fun Saturday, finding out if Hill and Scalley can create the QB havoc they so deftly love to design.

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This week’s predictions

• Indiana 42, Wisconsin 24

• Texas A&M 31, South Carolina 14

• Notre Dame 28, Pittsburgh 21

• Cincinnati 31, Arizona 28

• Kansas State 27, Oklahoma State 17

• Arizona State 24, West Virginia 21

• Alabama 28, Oklahoma 24

• Texas Tech 42, UCF 13

• Miami 33, North Carolina 31

• Georgia Tech 35, Boston College 21

• USC 27, Iowa 21

• Virginia 31, Duke 17

• Penn State 24, Michigan State 14

• Ole Miss 38, Florida 31

• Ohio State 42, UCLA 14

• Georgia 28, Texas 24

• Utah 38, Baylor 21

• UNLV 28, Utah State 24

• BYU 28, TCU 24

Last week: 11-5; overall 136-42 (.764)

Taegan Frandsen Ferrin excuses herself. Roughly 30 seconds later, she returns to the Zoom interview and places her 7-month-old daughter Nora in her lap.

A couple days later, Ferrin, of Centerville, Utah, and baby Nora would be in Tokyo.

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“Not many 7-month-olds have a passport, but this one does,” Ferrin said.

There, Ferrin will suit up with fellow Utahns Sophie Post and Payton DeGraw for the U.S. deaf women’s national soccer team at the 2025 Deaflympics. The U.S. plays its first game of the tournament on Friday against host country Japan.

Ferrin, Post and DeGraw are tasked with helping the U.S. secure its record fifth gold medal and defending the team’s unbeaten streak. The team has won 40 games and tied just once since its inception in 2005 — and that tie ended with a win in a penalty shootout.

“Of course, I feel really honored and privileged to be chosen to go for the Deaflympics to represent my country. I feel like it’s really cool to be involved with the Deaflympics as well, and I just feel really excited to be involved with this kind of experience,” DeGraw told the Deseret News through ASL interpreter Emily Thiel.

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Payton DeGraw

This will be the first Deaflympics for DeGraw, who grew up in Utah and played soccer at Brighton High School.

“My parents were very involved while interpreting for me, so I felt like it was really normal playing as a deaf person,” she said. “My coach would explain what to do, and they would use gestures and point where I should go and what I should do on the field. But really, my coaches were really supportive, too, and encouraged me plenty.”

DeGraw started her playing career as a forward but transitioned to goalkeeper to have a more challenging position.

She said the position change “was really beneficial for me as a deaf person, being able to scan the field and see everything. I could see what was going on. I could read the game.”

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In 2018, DeGraw sat in the Las Vegas airport after a soccer tournament with her mom. There, she met Post and her mother. Post’s mom told DeGraw’s mom about the U.S. deaf women’s national soccer team.

DeGraw, who was born deaf, had never played with deaf players before.

“My mom signed me up because she was very interested in joining a deaf team for me and having that experience,” she said.

She attended her first national team camp later that year in Michigan.

That camp would lead to opportunities like the upcoming Deaflympics as well as helping the U.S. win its third Women’s World Deaf Championship in Malaysia in 2023.

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After graduating from Brighton in 2018, DeGraw went to Gallaudet University, where she earned a degree in international studies and continued her soccer career. Upon finishing her degree, she worked as an aide at Jean Massieu School of the Deaf in Salt Lake City.

Now, DeGraw is working on getting her master’s from the University of Utah.

Taegan Frandsen Ferrin

Ferrin was born with an enlarged vestibular aqueduct, which causes the fluid in her ear to fluctuate and results in hearing loss, she previously explained to the Deseret News.

Ferrin has worn hearing aids since she was 3 months old. While playing soccer hasn’t been easy, the former Viewmont High goalkeeper has gone on to represent her country at the 2022 Deaflympics and the 2023 World Deaf Football Championships.

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While this won’t be Ferrin’s first Deaflympics, it will be her first as a mom.

Nora will accompany Ferrin to Tokyo. For the first two weeks, Ferrin’s mother will be there to care for baby Nora before Ferrin’s husband comes and takes care of their daughter for the remainder of the tournament.

Nora has already attended two national team camps with her mother in New Mexico and North Carolina.

“All the girls enjoy having her there, and it was so fun to watch them kind of interact with her,” she said.

Ferrin feels like her soccer career helped prepare her for motherhood.

“As a goalkeeper, you can’t really expect what’s going to happen. Like everything is unexpected. So, you kind of have to roll with the punches, and as a mom, you can’t expect everything. Everything is kind of just thrown at you,” she said.

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Ferrin is grateful that her daughter can come with her and she doesn’t have to miss her while she’s away at camp.

”It’s been so nice to not have to be worried about missing her throughout the week. But just like knowing she’s there, knowing I can go see her when I want to and stuff — it’s been awesome,” she said.

She has assistant coach Joy Fawcett to thank for Nora being able to tag along.

“Joy is the reason why I get to bring Nora to all my camps and all the tournaments because she was the first national team player that had kids,” she said. “So she got to bring her kids along to her camps and her tournaments. And she fought for that, for herself, and she has fought that for extended national team players as well, specifically for the deaf team.”

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According to Ferrin, Fawcett believes “no mom should have to be away from their kids,” and that “it’s not fair for you as a mom to have to quit what you love doing just because you’re having kids.”

Fawcett, a two-time World Cup Champion and Olympic gold medalist, also helped motivate Ferrin in her return to the pitch after her pregnancy. Ferrin would receive texts from Fawcett telling her that she was going to do stairs and asking if Ferrin was going to too.

“I was like, ‘Oh, well, if freaking Joy’s doing stairs, I gotta go do stairs, too.’ So, she was the main reason why I came back after having Nora and why I came back so quickly, too. So, Joy is the reason why I’m here today,” Ferrin said.

Sophie Post

Post, of Murray, Utah, was born with reverse slope hearing, but she hasn’t let it and the lack of accommodations for her disability stop her soccer career.

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“I actually had a coach tell me one time that I wouldn’t be able to play on the next level of the team unless I could like figure out how to hear people, essentially,” she previously told the Deseret News.

Post joined the national team in 2017, and is the longest-tenured of the three Utahns on the squad.

With the deaf national team, Post won both the 2022 Deaflympics and the 2023 World Deaf Football Championships. She also starred in last year’s historic doubleheader with the senior women’s national team.

That game was the first-ever doubleheader featuring an extended national team and senior national team, the deaf national team’s first-ever game on U.S. soil and its first televised U.S. Soccer-controlled match, as the Deseret News previously reported.

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Post capped that historic year off with a nomination for the U.S. Soccer 2024 Female Deaf Player of the Year.

Post is grateful for the opportunity to compete in another Deaflympics.

“I’m almost like more excited than the first time because I kind of know what I’m getting myself into this time, but I’m just really grateful to be able to make the roster and be back on the team and get to enjoy the coaches for their last camp,” she told the Deseret News last week.

The tournament will mark the last one for head coach Amy Griffin and Fawcett.

“I feel like they both have contributed to who I am as a person, and just really made me want to work harder, want to be better in my life and career in soccer,” Post said of the coaches.

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After the U.S. — hopefully — wins gold in Tokyo, Post will return to Utah and wait for her LSAT results. She hopes to enroll at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law and continue playing club soccer at the university.

She plans to take a lighter work load in law school, so she’s able to continue training and playing for the national team, which she called her priority.

The U.S. Deaf Women’s National Team plays its first game of the 2025 Deaflympics on Friday against Japan at 8 p.m. MT. It will then play Australia on Tuesday at 8 p.m. MT and will then close out its group stage matches against Great Britain on Nov. 22 at 8 p.m. MT.

If the U.S. finishes in third or fourth place, it will play in the bronze medal match, but if it finishes in the top two, it will play for gold on Nov. 25.

Utah State, coming off a big 51-14 against Nevada, has an important road test in front of them as they head to Las Vegas to face off against UNLV. The Rebels are 7-2 (3-2), and Utah State is also sitting at 3-2 in conference play. Currently, five Mountain West teams have two losses in conference in Hawaii (4-2), New Mexico (3-2), UNLV (3-2), Fresno State (3-2), and Utah State (3-2).

UNLV crushed Colorado State 42-10 on the road in their last game. In that game, Anthony Colandrea passed for 251 yards and two touchdowns, completing 15 of his 22 attempted passes. Running back Jaiden Thomas was the star of the offense, rushing for 131 yards and a touchdown on just seven carries. Wide receiver Troy Omeire had one reception for 68 yards and a touchdown. Linebacker Blesyng Alualu-Tuiolemotu led the Rebels’ defense with 10 total tackles and four solo. On the year, Anthony Colandrea has passed for 2,251 yards and 17 touchdowns to just five interceptions. Running back Jaiden Thomas has rushed for 780 yards and eight touchdowns on 103 carries. Wide receiver Jaden Bradley leads UNLV in receiving yards, garnering 650 yards on 37 receptions and three touchdowns. Against the Rams, UNLV had 571 yards of offense, including 320 rushing yards, but the Rebels did commit a significant amount of penalties with 9 penalties for 72 yards.

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Game Information:

Date: Saturday, November 15th

Time: 5:00 P.M. MTN

TV: CBS Sports Network

Line (Provided by Draftkings Sportsbook): UNLV (-6); Over/Under: 68.5

Series history: Overall, Utah State leads the series against the Rebels, 18-9. However, UNLV has won the last two games against the Aggies, both wins coming in Logan. In 2024, Utah State lost 50-34, and in 2022, Utah State lost 34-24. From 2012 to 2021, the Aggies had six straight wins against UNLV before falling in the close 2022 game. The Aggies went on a similar six-game winning streak against the Rebels between 1988 – 1993. In the last ten matchups, Utah State has gone 6-4 against the Rebels so it has been more even. The smallest margin of victory came in 1986, 7-6, and the largest margin of victory came in 1971, 27-7.

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Three Keys to the Game

1. Run an efficient offense, control the clock

Utah State had 522 yards of offense against Nevada with 377 passing yards and 145 rushing yards. The Aggies did have nine penalties for 75 yards and converted 50% of their 3rd Downs, just as UNLV did against Colorado State. To run an efficient offense, the Aggies need to control pre-snap penalties. Utah State also needs to avoid long 3rd Downs to get pressure off of Bryson Barnes and the receivers. Utah State still needs to run the ball, but Utah State has proven that they are most efficient when passing the ball. However, if Utah State only passes the football, UNLV will drop its defense back to prevent the big plays through the passing game. Bryson Barnes has to be able to use his feet to keep the Utah State defense off the field. Utah State needs to try to get Miles Davis going again, especially in consideration of the time of possession.

2. Force turnovers and limit explosive plays

One of the things that Anthony Colondrea does well is that he doesn’t turn over the football often. He has only five interceptions on the year to 17 touchdowns. The Utah State defense needs to be fundamentally ready to take on a very explosive offense that not only passes the ball well but also runs the ball extremely efficiently. Utah State has to get the UNLV offense off the field. The Aggies do not want to get into a shootout in Las Vegas, which would put even more pressure on Bryson Barnes and the Utah State offense.

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3. Protect the ball and win the turnover margin

Utah State has to be able to take advantage of the offensive opportunities that are given to them. The Aggies cannot afford to move the ball and turn it over. Quick changes of possession change the dynamic of the entire game. On the road in an environment that can get loud, Utah State cannot give the momentum back to UNLV. Forcing turnovers would allow Utah State to control the clock, and that is exactly what the Aggies need to do to win this game. Control the clock and keep the defense well rested. Utah State has a very good turnover margin and has an overall margin of +0.8, which is in the top 20 among FBS teams. The Aggies have 7 turnovers the entire year and have forced 11, which gives them a season margin of +4. The Aggies need to use their strength in ball protection to their advantage in this game.

Final Thoughts and Score Prediction

Utah State has struggled against the run this season, and in their losses, teams have had a lot of success running the football. This is an issue going into the UNLV game as the Rebels run the ball extremely well. For Utah State to win this game, the Aggies need to execute on the fundamentals of run defense, such as wrapping up and covering the edge. If Utah State can stop the run, its chances of winning this game will rise significantly. The story of this game is likely going to be Utah State’s offense and how they execute. Utah State, as mentioned, has not had a lot of turnovers this year. The issue for Utah State that needs to be addressed is penalties and the struggles on 3rd-Down conversions. If Utah State is continually punting throughout the game, that can be treated as turnovers because it is giving momentum back to UNLV.

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Blake Anderson will be able to use his legs to get some yards and will connect with the receivers, but Utah State struggles to stop Jaiden Thomas, and the Rebels do enough offensively to keep themselves in the mix for the Mountain West Championship game.

Score Prediction: UNLV: 38; USU: 34

Despite playing on the second night of a back to back, the Hawks managed to extend their winning streak to four games tonight against the Utah Jazz.

It was far from a perfect win, especially on the defensive end of the floor, but Atlanta remained perfect on their current four game road trip thanks to special performances from Jalen Johnson, Onyeka Okongwu, and Vit Krejci. On top of that, the Hawks shooting performance allowed them to get away from Salt Lake City with a win.

Here are our biggest takeaways from tonight’s game.

1 Monster games from Jalen and Onyeka

If the campaign for Jalen Johnson to make the All-Star game had not started, it should now. Johnson made NBA history by having the first statline that consisted of 31 points, 18 rebounds, 14 assists, and seven steals, shooting 10-19 from the floor and 4-5 from three.

Johnson has had to take on a massive role with Trae Young out and while Utah is far from elite on defense, Johnson carved them up with precision passing and quick decision making.

He was not alone though. It was a career night for Onyeka Okongwu, who got the start for Atlanta in place of Kristaps Porzingis. Okongwu shot 8-13 from three and finished with a career-high 32 points to go along with 11 rebounds. Okongwu is arguably the Hawks most underrated player and continues to get better and better.

2. Tough night on Defense

This was a good win for the Hawks considering the circumstances, this was their worst defensive performance maybe all season.

Utah was able to shoot 49% from the field and 43% from three (19-44) and they were led by Lauri Markkanen, who scored 40 points tonight. A 109.7 defensive rating is not something to be proud of, but let’s see if the Hawks can rebound from this performance when they face the Suns on Sunday.

3. Terrific Shooting Night

It was an unbelievable shooting night for the Hawks. They hit 15 threes in the first half of tonight’s game, which tied the franchise record for made threes in a half. They finished with 24 three pointers for the night and it was another terrific performance by Vit Krejci.

Krejci has been hot shooting this road trip and continued it tonight. He finished the game 6-8 from three and 20 points total. It was not just him though.

Johnson was 4-5 from three, Okongwu was 8-14, and Kennard was 4-7. They took advantage of a poor Utah defense and had their best offensive performance in a week.

More Atlanta Hawks News:

Former Congressman Ben McAdams officially announced Thursday his run to return to the U.S. House of Representatives, saying he is more concerned about the direction of the nation than any time in his life and he “couldn’t sit by and do nothing.”

“People are really struggling and Washington seems to have forgotten families like mine,” McAdams said in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. “They’ve forgotten what real life is like.”

McAdams said he grew up in West Bountiful, raised by his mother, along with his five siblings.

“We lived paycheck to paycheck. I remember as a kid some months the power was shut off because we couldn’t pay the bills. We struggled to put food on the table,” he said. Chronic health issues in the family left them with medical debt, and it was an experience he says shaped his perspective.

Now, he says, President Donald Trump is trying to deny food assistance to low-income families and trying to strip away Affordable Care Act subsidies that make health care affordable, “I just look at this and think, if there’s something I can do about it, I need to get off the sidelines.”

McAdams served one term in Congress, from 2018 to 2020. In 2019, despite serving in a Republican-leaning House district that had voted for Trump, he voted to impeach the then-president.

“When I voted to impeach Donald Trump, I knew when I took that vote that it would probably cost me my reelection,” he said. “But it was the right thing to do, and I don’t regret casting that vote.”

“The stakes are only higher this time around,” McAdams told The Tribune. “Now we see political enemies are being prosecuted by the Department of Justice. The National Guard is being sent in to patrol the streets of our cities. More than 170 American citizens were falsely detained by [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement], not to mention the thousands of hard-working, law-abiding immigrants who are ripped from their families without an ounce of due process.”

McAdams said that Trump has, “in the blink of an eye … taken the Constitution and trampled all over it. And what concerns me is that Republicans in Congress are really his accomplices. And you know, to be honest, too many Democrats just aren’t doing anything to stop it.”

One challenge for McAdams will be rebuilding trust among some in his own party.

In 2022, McAdams and Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson led an effort to convince Democratic delegates not to nominate a candidate for U.S. Senate and instead throw their support behind independent candidate Evan McMullin in a challenge to Sen. Mike Lee.

The party bought into the strategy and, despite holding Lee to the lowest percentage of the vote total than any Republican since Orrin Hatch was first elected in 1976, McMullin still lost by 10 points.

McAdams said McMullin “was simply a better candidate to face Mike Lee and to oust him from office,” and the Democratic delegates agreed. McAdams recognizes that some in the party would have preferred a more traditional approach, “but for me, this was about electing somebody who could make a difference.”

McAdams becomes the second Democrat to join the race since 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson rejected new congressional boundaries proposed by Republican lawmakers and instead chose a map submitted by the plaintiffs in a years-long lawsuit challenging the state’s U.S. House districts.

State Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, announced her candidacy Wednesday morning. Both Riebe and McAdams were planning to run regardless of which district Gibson chose. However, McAdams had sent an invitation to a campaign kick-off event to his supporters last week.

The new map creates a compact district in the northern portion of Salt Lake County that heavily favors Democrats. But it is the only one of the four districts where Democrats have much hope of winning, meaning Riebe, McAdams and likely others will be competing in what could become a very crowded field.

The district includes areas McAdams knows well. He was twice elected as Salt Lake County mayor and before held a state Senate seat that included a chunk of Salt Lake City and surrounding areas.

McAdams said he welcomes the challenge and will be reminding voters of his accomplishments — pointing to his support for expanding Medicaid to provide health coverage to low-income Utahns, reforming homeless services and pushing for LGBTQ+ rights during his days as an advisor to former Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker.

“People know that I stand up and I fight, but they also know that I win,” he said. “A tweet isn’t going to bring down the cost of groceries and a tweet is not going to make housing more affordable.”

McAdams said he wants to roll back Trump’s tariffs, which he calls “a sales tax on food that’s hurting American families.” He said he would not vote for a budget that doesn’t include support for families trying to pay for health care.

And he said most of his work since leaving Congress has been on affordable housing, working with cities and counties around the country to find ways to incentivize infill construction on unused government property.

Inside a Salt Lake City warehouse, a group of men are controlling the weather.

As the team of drone pilots and environmental specialists — employees of the cloud seeding company Rainmaker — spray chemicals into the sky, a small crowd, including one of Utah’s top environmental officials, watches carefully.

The process of cloud seeding, a long-studied method of artificially inducing precipitation, has been creating rain and snow in Utah since the 1950s. But in the era of President Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy’s “Make America Health Again” movement, weather modification has become a target of conspiracy theories and political attacks.

In September, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene held a hearing titled “Playing God with the Weather — a Disastrous Forecast” and is pushing legislation to heavily fine and potentially jail anyone conducting “weather modification” activities.

“Modern attempts at weather control don’t appeal to divinity,” Greene said in her opening statement. “Instead, they use technology to put chemicals in the sky.”

But in Utah, cloud seeding is just about the water.

“Utah’s the second driest state in the country,” U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy, one of Greene’s Republican colleagues, said in an interview at Rainmaker’s event launching this year’s cloud seeding season, which Rainmaker billed as “the largest cloud seeding program in modern American history.”

“We’re always looking for ways to have better water policy and be more innovative,” Maloy said.

She added, “Look, every new idea gets pushed back, and some ideas are great and some of them aren’t. The only way to find out is to show up and learn and listen and try things. Utah has been innovative and forward-looking on this, and I’m really excited that the state is.”

‘Everything in my power to stop it’

Cloud seeding is not new, nor is its basic premise — dispersing substances like silver iodide into already-existing clouds to induce condensation and precipitation — particularly complicated. Nevertheless, it’s drawn criticism from some who claim that the chemicals used during cloud seeding are used at high enough levels to be dangerous to people, or that the government is purposely engineering the weather to harm specific communities, despite no evidence to support either theory.

In particular, the MAHA movement has made “geoengineering” one of its key issues.

In April, Kennedy was asked how to stop “stratospheric aerosol injections” — a reference to some weather modification practices — on “The Dr. Phil Podcast.”

“I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it,” Kennedy said.

Across the country, some states have begun to introduce anti-weather modification legislation. Florida passed a geoengineering ban in April 2025 that prohibits cloud seeding. Montana banned certain geoengineering practices in March, but stopped short of cloud seeding for water resource management.

A similar effort to prohibit “the release of chemicals or substances from an aircraft for the purpose of weather geoengineering” even made its way through the Utah Senate earlier this year, though the bill, as passed, explicitly exempted cloud seeding practices and never got a vote on the House floor.

Bills seeking to restrict geoengineering have also been introduced in New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont.

Utah’s two Republican senators are also split on the issue. While Sen. John Curtis says whether or not to use cloud seeding is Utah’s decision, “and I support them if that’s what they want to do,” Sen. Mike Lee has said, “Putting the government in charge of the weather is never going to end well.”

But Utah’s highest-ranking natural resource official disagrees.

‘Technology supports it and I’m excited‘

Cloud seeding has a champion in Joel Ferry, the Department of Natural Resources director and a former Republican state lawmaker. Ferry has pushed for the strategy for years — to the point that some in the state, as Rainmaker officials and Ferry himself noted at the event, refer to cloud seeding as “Ferry dust.” During an interview at Rainmaker’s event, he pushed back against conspiracy theories about the work.

“We look at the facts and we recognize that cloud seeding, the way that we do it, is actually quite beneficial for the environment,” Ferry said. “One thing that we’re really good at in Utah is looking at the science, analyzing the data and coming up with informed decisions, as opposed to just going with conspiracy theories or whatever the hype of the day is.”

Ferry noted that cloud seeding “has been happening for decades” and that he sees Rainmaker’s work as “just doing it in a more advanced way to help us get the results that we want, where we want them, when we want them and how we want them.”

The natural resources director said he didn’t want to discount concerns and wants to ensure the state has data and research to validate its cloud seeding efforts.

“This is a really critical part of how Utah continues to thrive and survive for the future,” Ferry said. “Water is at the center of that.”

In 2023, the Utah Legislature made a major investment in the program, earmarking $12 million in one-time funding and an additional $5 million in ongoing spending. Earlier this year, they allocated an additional $3 million in one-time funding for the Bear River Basin Cloud Seeding Program, the project helping to fund Rainmaker’s work.

And it’s not just state officials who still see the benefits of cloud seeding.

Dan Anderson, a corn, alfalfa and cattle farmer in Fillmore, Utah, said he sees the practice as vital for the future of farming, as the aquifer in his valley is shrinking.

“Anyone that actually takes the time to look into it knows that it has some validity to it,” Anderson said during an interview at the Rainmaker event. “No one wants to waste their money, but I think the technology supports it and I’m excited.”

Rainmaker CEO Augustus Doricko doesn’t think Secretary Kennedy always differentiates between cloud seeding and other conspiracy topics like solar radiation modification and chemtrails. Whether that’s a “rhetorical tactic or earnest enough,” he compares Kennedy’s language to saying “planes are deliberately trying to kill everybody with, like, mRNA vaccine nanobots.”

Meeting political decision-makers where they are could be as straightforward as pointing out ways in which branding cloud seeding is in alignment with some of the Trump administration’s other priorities, like the MAHA movement’s push for more sustainable agriculture and fewer environmental toxins, said Rainmaker’s head of operations, Parker Cardwell.

“Our mission is to create soil that is more arable, farmland that’s more viable, communities that are more flourishing,” Cardwell said. “So that’s kind of what we’re shooting for anyways.”

“You do not have to investigate hard to find how the aridification of the Great Salt Lake or the Salt Sea is causing chronic respiratory issues for the populations around,” Doricko said. “You don’t have to look very hard to find how either persistent smog or wildfire particulates are causing issues.”

But Doricko is careful not to typecast Rainmaker as belonging to any particular political movement.

“There’s so many companies that have decided to become ‘Trump companies,’ and it definitely expedites their interfacing with the White House, but it seems like a long-term bad strategy to do that, just from a corporate perspective,” he said.

The states that most rely on cloud seeding — Colorado, Idaho, Utah, California, Texas — could hardly be characterized as a political monolith, Doricko added.

“That is the most politically diverse group in the country, and they’re all in favor of cloud seeding,” he said.

Utah has a long history of cloud seeding — with renewed and major investments in recent years — is a supportive place to develop new cloud seeding technologies, Rainmaker’s CTO, Jackson Schultz, said: “They’ve never strayed away from continuing to invest in it.”

To some, that might look like a political statement. But for Anderson, as a farmer, the reality is much more straightforward: “People need to realize that without water, there’s no farms. Without farms, there’s no food.”

“In the West, we need to try or utilize anything we can to improve our situation,” he said.